


Could Be A Morning Sunrise

by Owlship



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: A Soft Afterlife, Character Turned Into a Ghost, F/F, First Kiss, Making Out, Mention of (one sided) Angharad/Furiosa, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Canon, They're Dead But It's Okay They're Not Gone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 20:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17874104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/pseuds/Owlship
Summary: Besides her Angharad glows in the firelight, golden hair and pale skin illuminated by flames, and Valkyrie has to drag her eyes away again and again. Angharad looks so different from when they first met, when they hadn't yet realized that they were all the way dead instead of only halfway there. Ironic how being further from life makes her look further from death.





	Could Be A Morning Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Two Weeks to Skirt the Wall of Mountains](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15007655) by [confucamus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/confucamus/pseuds/confucamus). 



> Originally posted [on tumblr](http://v8roadworrier.tumblr.com/post/175278921286/laurabearl-replied-to-your-post-i-feel-like-i)! This isn't necessarily in the same universe but y'all should still read the story that inspired this one, it's good.
> 
> Title from "[She Keeps Me Warm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhqH-r7Xj0E)"!

They don't need to make a camp at night, not when there's no need for the dead to sleep, but old habits are hard to shake. And there's the fact that it still sucks to get spilled off your bike because it's dark and you missed a pothole in the road. So when the sun goes down- _if_ the sun goes down, some days blurring straight into the next because time is apparently more of a suggestion after you've died- when the sun goes down, they'll pull over and set up a little camp.

They don't need to eat or drink, either, but there's something undeniably comforting about a mug of hot tea to curl one's fingers around, and it isn't like the canteen strapped to the bike will ever run out of water.

"Do you ever regret it?" Valkyrie asks, keeping her gaze assiduously turned towards the starry sky above them.

Besides her Angharad glows in the firelight, golden hair and pale skin illuminated by flames, and Valkyrie has to drag her eyes away again and again. Angharad looks so different from when they first met, when they hadn't yet realized that they were all the way dead instead of only halfway there. Ironic how being further from life makes her look further from death.

Angharad takes a sip of her own tea, knee drawn up to her chest. She sits like that a lot, curled up like she still can't believe she's able to, the burden of her swollen belly gone. "No," she says, and doesn't elaborate.

Valkyrie fidgets with the bird skulls sewn onto her glove and tries not to pick at her response. It's the answer she wanted to hear, after all, although it occurs to her that Angharad might be thinking she was asking about something else.

"What was Furiosa like? When you knew her," Valkyrie says into the silence.

Angharad is quiet for a moment, expression contemplative when Valkyrie allows herself to look over. "Hard," she says, "Hard and cold. But she still risked her life to get us out, so that wasn't all she was."

It's Valkyrie's turn to contemplate. It sounds reasonable to her, having seen the pain and anger her friend was radiating the brief period they were reunited. And yet, like Angharad had said, Furiosa had still risked her life getting the girls out and again getting them back in.

"What was she like when you knew her?" Angharad asks.

Valkyrie smiles, surprised all over again that the action no longer pulls at the scar on her face, the one that isn't there anymore. Shame, she still thinks the thing had made her look badass. "She was a little terror," she says. "We both were. But she was the boss, the one getting us into trouble that _I_ had to get us out of."

Angharad smiles, and uncurls her position a little. "Will you tell me about what the Green Place was like?"

Valkyrie does so gladly, glossing over the way things had been bad enough at the end that they'd abandoned the place. She tells Angharad of the way the fields looked in the sunlight, how the earth smelled when it was tilled, what it was like to submerge her entire body in cool water.

"I wish I could have seen in," Angharad says after a lull.

"I wish you could have seen it, too," Valkyrie says, quiet. Angharad is no longer curled up at all, their knees brushing as their feet stretch towards the coals of the fire they don't really need, the fire that there won't be any traces of come the next morning.

"I kissed her once," Angharad says, apropos of nothing.

"Huh?" Valkyrie replies, eloquently.

"Furiosa," Angharad clarifies. There's a little bit of a smile on her face, rueful. "I thought I could _make_ her care about us, if I tried."

She shakes her head while Valkyrie tries to wrap her mind around the image of it; the Furiosa she'd known growing up and the Furiosa she'd met at the end of a long road, and how in the world anyone could stand to be kissed by Angharad and not fall to their knees in thankfulness.

"What did she do?" Valkyrie says.

"Pushed me away," Angharad says with a shrug, gaze sharp as she watches out of the corner of her eye. "Told me she knew what I was doing, and I'd better stop it."

"Did you?" Valkyrie asks, mind flicking to a fantasy of the two of them together, the hard-eyed Furiosa she'd encountered with her shaved head and metal hand and the glowing Angharad, determined to do whatever it took to get out- nearly whatever it took, anyway. They'd already broached the topic of killing and had nearly yelled themselves hoarse over it before declaring a ceasefire.

Angharad nods her head and brushes her hair away from her face. "She came around on her own."

"Shame," Valkyrie says before she can stop herself.

Angharad doesn't seem to appreciate the joke, however, her expression closing off. "She said no," she says. "I wouldn't ignore that."

"I didn't mean anything by it," Valkyrie says, hoping to soothe over ruffled feathers.

Angharad doesn't say anything in response for a long moment, but she doesn't turn herself away, either. She drains the last of the tea in her mug and says, "I'd wanted her to say yes."

Valkyrie stays still and quiet, like Angharad is some prey animal that will startle away.

"I never kissed anyone before," Angharad says, "I don't know if she had, either. But I'd hoped..." She shakes her head and sets the mug down firmly in the sand. "It doesn't matter."

"No one ever kissed you before?" Valkyrie says, and then mentally curses her tongue for picking _that_ detail to focus on.

Angharad shakes her head. For a moment it seems as if she's wearing white cloths again, instead of the practical gear she picked up from the Vuvalini's stash.

"That's a real shame," Valkyrie says, because she might as well. And it _is_ a shame, a girl like that going her whole life and never even being kissed- being forced to carry some old warlord's baby in her womb and not even knowing the simple pleasure of a kiss!

"It is what it is," Angharad says, but Valkyrie shakes her head because she's just had a brilliant idea.

"Kiss me," Valkyrie says.

Angharad looks at her askance, surprise and what is hopefully not annoyance coloring up her cheeks. "Why?" she says.

"Because I can't stand to know you've never been kissed," Valkyrie replies. "Because I can't track down the people who hurt you now that I'm dead. Because you're pretty and I like you. Because I need to make up for Furiosa being a huge idiot. Take your pick."

Angharad looks truly surprised now, eyes wide in the dark.

"Come on," Valkyrie says, "What's the harm? No one ever died from kissing."

"We're already dead," Angharad points out.

"See? No danger!"

Angharad bites her lip, eyes sweeping away to look elsewhere. Now that the idea is fully formed in Valkyrie's head, she doubts she's ever going to forget it, doubts she's going to be able to look at Angharad and not imagine kissing her, touching her, finding out what their ghostly bodies can do together…

"You don't have to," Valkyrie says with as much seriousness as she can muster, because it would certainly be nice, but she wants it to be known that she really isn't trying to pressure Angharad, here. The girl's been through enough without adding more to her plate.

In answer, Angharad darts forward and plants a quick peck on Valkyrie's lips.

It's Val's turn to stare in shock, a smile blooming on her face. "You kissed me!" she says happily.

Angharad ducks her face away for a moment, before lifting her chin defiantly. "You said I could," she says.

"I did," Valkyrie agrees. "Can I kiss you back?"

Angharad nods, and makes no move to lean in again.

Valkyrie moves slowly, carefully, always within Angharad's line of sight. She plants one of her hands in the sand by Angharad's hip and reaches with the other towards her face, fingers cupping her cheek as carefully as if she was made of precious materials instead of whatever substance spirits are formed of. When Angharad doesn't flinch away Valkyrie brings her own face in close, closer, until her lips brush over Angharad's.

Instead of a quick peck Valkyrie stays put, pressing their mouths together and coaxing Angharad into responding rather than just sitting there. She doesn't try anything fancy, doesn't bring tongues into the equation, she just moves their lips against one another's until Angharad pulls back with a shaky breath.

"See?" Valkyrie says, her own voice oddly breathless, as if the dead need to actually breathe, "No harm done."

Angharad licks her lips, and Valkyrie makes no attempt not to follow the movement with her eyes. They're nice lips, soft and plush and pink, not even chapped- not chapped _before_ their post-death makeover, even.

Her hand is still on Angharad's face, her knees pressing into Angharad's leg where they're turned towards one another. Valkyrie searches her eyes for apprehension, for signs that further contact is unwelcome, and finds nothing of the sort.

She leans in again, and this time Angharad meets her kissing eagerly, if still with a noticeable lack of expertise. Valkyrie flicks her tongue out just a little, wanting to really taste Angharad's lips, and to her surprise Angharad parts her mouth and welcomes her in.

They spend a long time kissing, Angharad's hands moving to clutch at Valkyrie's shoulders while she brushes through Angharad's long hair. She's in Valkyrie's lap now, having moved there with a quiet suggestion, bodies close and warmer than Valkyrie would have expected given their technically dead status.

The night passes, at some point. Perhaps faster than it would if they weren't dead, but Valkyrie can't say for sure, so caught up is she in kissing the daylights out of Angharad. She wants to touch Angharad all over but she doesn't, wary of scaring her away, aware of the fact that they have all the time in the world.

"Do you think we should go back?" Angharad asks during a lull in the making out, when they have somehow ended up lying side by side on the sun-warmed sand, the sky overhead a clear brilliant blue.

"We could," Valkyrie allows. She likes the open road, especially like this- no time, no dangers, just the occasional fellow ghost as they pass on through. But then, most of the people she knows are already dead. She'd thought Furiosa was dead, too, until she showed up at their trap spot with a cartload of passengers and a truckload of backstory.

She reaches out and brushes a strand of golden hair off Angharad's face, fingers delicate against the skin she touches. "We don't have to go back there if you don't want to," she says. She doesn't need the full story, the gory details, to know that a lot of bad happened at the Citadel. She wouldn't think any less of Angharad if she didn't want to ever see that place again.

"I do," Angharad says. "He's gone, he doesn't get to keep controlling me." She reaches up and covers Valkyrie's hand with her own, keeping it pressed against her cheek, free now of scars. "I want to see what they've made of it. How my sisters are doing. Dag was pregnant, did she tell you?"

Valkyrie has only a hazy idea of which girl was which, but none of them had _looked_ particularly pregnant, except of course for Angharad at the beginning. "Let's go, then," she says.

It's really that easy to head out, just making the decision. The tank of their bike never runs out of guzz, the sun doesn't scorch and dry them out like it used to, there are no threats to be found. It's merely a matter of heading in the right direction and waiting for the landmarks to resolve themselves out of the dust.


End file.
